MAKE BIGGER COMMISSIONS
Ryan helps auction companies look like marketing experts to their sellers by clarifying their message, communicating that message with attractive media, and measuring that media with state-of-the-art tools.

348: 5 Ways to Make Your Direct Mail Effective in a Digital World

It won’t surprise most of my readers that an auction company hired me to design more than 120 different postcards last year or that the people on their mailing list purchased millions of dollars’ worth of assets from them in 2016. What might surprise you is that this client mailed each postcard to less than 1% of their mailing list database—or that this same customer spent at least three times as much on Facebook per auction than they did on that very successful direct mail.

347: How My Wife Proves Both Ashanti and Saint Peter Were Right

Crystal’s also in the process of proving the Apostle Peter’s hypothetical scenario true: “Even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct.”

346: Serotonin Gives Me Hat Hair

I’ll never forget that moment in my life: the sense of accomplishment, the impression of awe. Scientists have found that reflecting on life’s wins like these refuels our serotonin levels in our bodies, which helps us manage stress. Triggering those memories and what goes with them immunizes us to burnout. So, I wear these hats regularly to take me back to January 2008.

345: How I Finally Started Keeping My New Year’s Resolutions

As of right now, I’m keeping 40% more of my New Year’s resolutions than when I first got serious about my goals a decade ago. That might not sound like a lot, but my friends and family have told me that they can see real change happening in my life. I’ve gotten to this mile marker, in part, by following these five principles.

344: How to Find Unique Vacations on a Budget

I regularly get asked how I find the unique places where I vacation. My trademark response: “Give me five hours and Google, and I can find a vacation you’ve never seen.”

Everybody has the Internet, though; and everybody has five hours. Here’s my process, in case you’re looking to break your status quo.

343: Finding My Inner Beach

What I don’t know is whether or not I fell in love with the exception to the rule. I’ve been to seasides on four continents and to beaches in at least eight countries. This is the first time I’ve felt this comfortable with my feet in the sand and nothing to do. I guess I’ll have to give another beach a try to know for sure.

342: Good Books to Read Over Christmas Break

The twenty or so books I have finished so far in 2016, though, have each left an impression on me. Several have created meaningful conversations in my life and even some personal growth. I’ve listed the books below and commented on each for two reasons: (1) to remind me of my takeaways and (2) to pique your interest in the better ones.

Auction Advertising Tips from the World’s Best Beach

That’s true, whether the asset is a $3,600,000 home or a rental house, a $350,000 combine or a twenty-year-old manure spreader, Marilyn Monroe’s $4,800,000 dress or a collection of Beanie Babies. While consumers might have to be convinced of a price point, they already know whether something appeals to them or not.

340: The Gospel According to Arrival

Theologians have studied God’s expressions in similar ways as the linguists and scientists of Arrival evaluated the transcriptions of the heptapods. Like the linguists, it can be easy for us to focus on parsing and expounding—on asking, “What is your plan here!?”

339: Is the Difference Between Marketing and Advertising Costing You Money?

Marketing is the strategic pursuit of qualified prospects.
Advertising is the media through which marketing decisions are communicated.

In other words, advertising is just a part of marketing. It’s the louder, more flamboyant part, but it’s only a part.

338: I Met a Deceitful Beauty in Paradise

At times in my life, my life looks active and alive. Tourists visiting my life would see life and maybe even evidence of growth but no significant fruit. There are moments of beauty, of put-togetherness. With social media assumptions, the motion blur of my life can look green.

337: A New Tool to Learn More About Your Offline Bidders

While I’ve not yet got to play around with this tool, its potential is exciting—especially for auctioneers who issue post-auction reports to sellers. The more data point you can use to validate your marketing strategy, the better.

336: How to Get National Advertising on a Local Budget

Have you ever been asked to market anything that had a national appeal, but the asset value didn’t allow a national advertising campaign? It happens to my clients on a regular basis. My advice for that situation has recently changed, as a burgeoning technology helps solves part of that problem.

The Adult Path to “Childlike Faith”

Preachers have explained to me from pulpits that children inherently trust others, that they don’t bring a lot of baggage to their worldview, that they accept premises without a lot of investigation. As the uncle of thirteen developing humans, though, I’ve found that the inquisitive questions never stop. From what I’ve heard as the friend of multiple child counselors, kids can be skittish, skeptical, and complicated.

334: 6 Things That Make Your Facebook Ads More Expensive

Facebook advertising is billed in terms of cost per click (CPC), but that price isn’t uniform. CPC is determined by algorithms and invisible auctions. Ads compete for eyeballs, as Facebook allows only a certain number of ads during a user’s time on the service. Facebook wants ads to be appeal to its users, so that they aren’t annoyed off the platform. Because of this, the world’s largest platform wants paid content to match user interests as much as possible

333: Midlife Lessons from a Cheesy Kids Movie

I don’t know if I’ve ever said this about a kid, but it seemed like the cheerful abandon of our date was cathartic for JJ. It definitely was for me. I hadn’t expected that, and I didn’t plan to walk away with a “moral to the story”—even though all kids’ flicks are didactic.

332: The L Word

Across the last four decades, that was the first time that word was applied to me (in person, anyway). That’s probably why I cocked my head a little when I heard the designation. It might explain why I’ve walked around with that moment and that sound for months now, trying to figure out what to do with it.

331: A Year From Today

I don’t need a midlife crisis, because I have a decent handle on who I am, who I want to be, and how much the distance between those two points is shrinking. I just want a big journey to celebrate a big milestone.

330: Conrad Glacier: My Destiny

I don’t know if I’ll ever make it back to the Conrad,
But that’s not for lack of longing.
I already miss a place I didn’t even know existed for my first 38 years.

If I do return, I’ll see more rock and less ice.
There will be less of the glacier.
But the Conrad will see more of me—a better me.

Reach the Bidders You Didn’t Know You Were Missing

There’s a sneaking suspicion in many auction marketers—and definitely in their sellers. We wonder if there was a stone unturned, a motivated bidder that wasn’t reached by our advertising. Did we cast a big enough or tight enough net? What people weren’t in our mailing list broker’s database? Who didn’t read the newspaper during the

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